Recon
by cozyintherocket
Summary: Lily feels dreadfully criminal, sneaking into the Potters' garden night after night. But as she blinks into James's accusing wandlight, she blames only him for having landed her there.
1. Chapter 1

**Recon**  
Chapter One

The prickling in Lily Evans's right leg fell to a dull throbbing as she shifted her weight. She grimaced but stayed quiet, shoving away a strand of her red hair. Its black color in the feeble moonlight had only captured her mind in some dreadful sort of symbolism, as if that meant she was morphing into a sinister prowler, or worse - into a Potter.

The image of James's hair drifted around her head for a moment and she glanced up at the shadows cast on the beautiful brick façade in front of her. The yellow light from the second story window showed no sign of the boy there, not even the form of his rumpled head. She rolled her eyes, unwillingly reminded of his vain habit. She never even thought his propositions through, really. One hand to his hair and all she could think about was how he must see himself: an irresistible vision of unruly charm. There was no way in hell she would feed his ego by even considering a date. She was quite pleased at being the one thing the arrogant prick couldn't claim.

She could almost find it funny, then, that for the third night in a row, she was clutching to the darkness below his window.

Not that this had anything to do with him, she assured herself firmly. Well, it did. But not in a romantic way - no, in the typical annoying Potter sort of way. She wasn't here to listen to his voice, or imagine him naked, or anything else she would much rather block from her mind. This was business, and he was only hanging around it, as usual.

Concentrating back on the garden plant she was crouched next to, she grasped hold of the waxy leaves lying flat against their vine. The plant quivered at the disturbance, but did nothing more. With painstaking caution, she pulled the leaves upward and flinched when the thin stems snapped. She held her breath, but nothing else happened. After a few moments the vine stopped moving, and she pocketed the leaves as she released the air from her lungs. Hasty to finally crawl out of the garden and go home, she dug her fingers into the dirt for a sample.

"Bloody hell!" she mouthed angrily. As soon as she had touched a root, the vine had reared away and sprayed a burning liquid onto her skin. Her free arm had caught most of it, thrown up to shield her eyes, but her chin and forehead stung heavily. She wiped at her face with her sleeve and, abandoning the soil with half a mind to take out her wand and set fire to the vines, hauled herself up off the ground. A glance upward showed the light from James's bedroom still undisturbed. At least he's having a good night, she thought bitterly.

She cried out as her wrists were grabbed and pinned together behind her back, while an unmistakable wooden point was pressed firmly up against her chin.

"Three nights I've noticed something down here," a deep voice rumbled menacingly. "What do you…think you're…" He trailed off and his grip on her wrists slackened slightly, although she still felt unable to slip free. She couldn't tell whether this was because he recognized her as a girl, or as the proclaimed love of his life.

"James," said Lily, wrenching her arms away from him as the sound of her voice loosened his hands even more. She smacked his wand away from her neck and turned to face him, but he did nothing to stop her.

"Lily Evans?" he asked incredulously. "_Lumos_."

"Can you get that out of my face, Potter?" she snapped, his surname jumping to her lips with her flaring annoyance. Still shocked, he nodded and lowered his wand so that the lighted tip softly illuminated them both.

"What are you doing here?" he managed.

"I was…" She paused and tried to ease her mounting frustration. "I…How the bloody hell did you do that, anyway?" Her wrists ached, but she was glad to find that she no longer felt the vine's toxin eating at her skin.

"Oh. Good, wasn't I?" His voice wasn't very smug, but she figured he might as well be.

"Yeah," she answered sarcastically, "and now that you've mauled me, can I use your bath?" She felt nothing on her, but still wished for some water - Professor Drake had warned her she might get a rash, and that was the last thing she needed on top of trespassing charges.

"My…?" Despite his confusion, his hazel eyes sparkled. "You sneak into my garden, and now you want to come inside and take your clothes off?"

"_Can_ I or not?"

He smiled. "Certainly, love, although you do owe me an explanation. Hold on tight."

His arms wrapped around her and she gasped at the unexpected feeling that she was being pressed from all sides. It lasted only a moment, however, and when she unclenched her eyelids she was standing on a black marble floor, a few feet away from what looked like a small round pool. She felt like she would never get used to Apparating.

"Seventeen, I see?" she asked through gritted teeth, though she would have much rather have hit him for the lack of a warning.

"Ah, you should know, having so callously declined my invitation to celebrate."

She ignored him and began to fill the bath. Sensing something more tense than usual, James placed a fluffy towel on the white marble counter and mentioned something about finding her some clothes as he left the room. Dazed from the sudden Apparation, her tiring stress, and the ridiculous plant attack, she locked the door behind him. She didn't want to deal with him again, even if he came bearing a clean t-shirt. Wearily she slipped out of her clothes and sunk into the warm water.

The truth was that she wouldn't be in Potter's house if he hadn't been pestering her a year ago. Right awful, wasn't it, the way the universe worked in his favor. He acted like a prat, and in return received a nighttime visit from the "girl of his dreams." Not that this was going to be anything like he wanted. She wasn't everything and everyone else. She owed him nothing, and if she chose to walk out of here without another word, she could.

She inhaled deeply and submerged her head. Entirely underwater, she felt her heartbeat slow and her anger subside. Floating below, watching her long red hair wave back and forth, her mind was calm.

Once she had hoisted herself out of the bath and dried herself with the towel, she examined her damp reflection in the mirror. Her fair skin showed no intruding redness, on either face or arm. Sighing in uneasy relief, she put on her undergarments and glanced at her clothes. They were streaked with dirt, and she wanted nothing to do with the shirt in case it was still wet with toxin. Her decision to lock James out of the bathroom before he had given her anything to wear now came back as clear stupidity. Best case scenario, the pervert would have some clothes for her, but not until he saw her naked. Worst case, he wouldn't give her any clothes at all.

She opened the door a sliver and peeked through. There was no sign of him, but neatly folded on the floor were a t-shirt and shorts. The door to the hall was closed, encouraging her to inch out of the bathroom. When there was no going back, she rushed out and scrambled into his clothes. She half expected him to pop out from under his Invisibility Cloak when she was done, but the silence in the room remained broken only by the low fire crackling in the fireplace. Allowing herself to relax a little, she surveyed the room and noticed for the first time how beautiful it was. The walls were painted a deep, soft red, and their trimmings were gold. The large bed with glossy rosewood posts looked as if the white blankets would let her sink in and sleep until the afternoon blazed in through the huge windows. She settled for the white couch by the fireplace, sitting down after examining her reflection in the low coffee table of the same glossy rosewood as the bed frame. The bookcase in the room seemed less abandoned than she would have imagined, and the desk was cluttered with picture frames, papers, and other objects.

"Lily?" she heard faintly, followed by a muffled knock on the door. "Hey, Evans?"

Lily reluctantly raised herself off the couch and let James in. He strode over to where she had been sitting and set a tray on the coffee table.

"I wanted to give you enough time, so I went downstairs and made you some…tea," he finished with an odd sort of laugh, as if making someone tea was the most unusual thing. He glanced down at the two little china cups on their matching flowered tray and laughed again. When he raised his head, he saw a flash of red hair and felt something collide gently with his chest.

Lily Evans was hugging him.

Something was definitely not right with this girl.

* * *

Author's Note: Review please! I would like some feedback on things that are good or things that need fixing. Thanks!

Author's Note 2: This is a replaced chapter. Some words are different, but nothing of much importance.


	2. Chapter 2

**Recon**  
Chapter Two

Lily hadn't thought it out.

Instead of taking advantage of her, James had attempted to take care of her with clothes, privacy, and tea. The second gesture surprised her the most, however silly he had felt playing tea party. But maybe that wasn't what had drawn her - maybe it was his quiet laugh that rumbled in his chest, or the various family pictures adorning his desk. Maybe it was none of that, because she hadn't thought. Her emotions had ballooned inside her, and that must have been what had carried her to him.

His chest was rigid, and though he never made a secret of his toned body, she also suspected he had stopped breathing.

"Thanks," she murmured. The whispered air seemed to revive him.

"Who knew," he said lightly as he draped his warm arms over her back, "that a cuppa could open a girl's heart."

"Huh. So, the tea, you were just trying to get me to take off my clothes?" She could feel her annoyance stirring.

"Technically they're mine," he began automatically, but then shivered as her wet hair pulled away, leaving a cold splotch of near black on his gray t-shirt. She untangled her arms from him and sat on the couch. "But that's not what I meant by it. I wanted to let you alone so I went to the kitchen by habit and, I don't know. Tea," he finished lamely as he felt his words barely clink against the barrier around her.

"I'll be sure to thank the house-elf that brewed it," she snapped.

"Shall I take off my clothes and don my good pillowcase, then?"

She remained silent. He looked at her expectantly, then turned away with a shrug and pulled his shirt over his head.

"James!" she hissed, throwing her hands up with no apparent plan of action. The firelight flickered and teased over the ridges of his body. Haughtily she told herself it was nothing she hadn't seen before - again, never made a secret.

"Relax, Evans. I'm no strip show," he assured with a lopsided grin before spreading his wetted t-shirt in front of the fireplace and striding away to tug a new one from the wardrobe. "I'd just prefer not to look like I've spit up on myself on the off chance that - "

"My dearest Prongs, the night awai-uh?" Sirius Black's mischievous expression, or what Lily and James could see of it through a small hole in the wall, slipped off of his face. Having opened unnoticed, the hole continued to melt the wall around it. What seemed like globs of dark red candle wax fell away until Sirius, whose face had flicked quickly from shock back to mischievousness, was framed in a new misshapen doorway into James's room. Remus Lupin angled his way through beside his frozen friend, then promptly ceased all movement. Peter Pettigrew, behind the both of them, resorted to teetering on his toes to see what was the matter.

Lily shifted in her seat and became hyperaware of the way James's blue t-shirt might be clashing with her hair, of the possibility that she may have developed a great red rash after all. She waited for someone to move, but James too had gone under the spell that locked his friends. In that age of uncertainty, it became ever clearer to her how alike the Marauders were. Their eyes roved amongst each other's until suddenly they all burst into movement, as if they had finished a telepathic countdown. Peter broke the air above his head with two stubby fists. Remus rolled his eyes with good humor and then shook his head at Sirius, who had made a rather obscene gesture with his hips. James shoved the fresh shirt over his head.

"Oy, it's not what you think," James defended as he pulled the hem down over his chest, but the grin on his best friends' faces was proving infectious. Sirius only guffawed and sprawled himself across the bed while Remus strolled over to the couch to sit beside Lily. He offered her a warm smile that made her want to hug him as well.

"Wormtail…" drawled Sirius. Lily, who had opened her mouth to greet Remus, looked up to see Peter spring up from his seat at the foot of the bed.

"Always forget," Peter laughed and scurried to the melted doorway. He placed his palm on the wall around it and smoothed inward with the heel of his hand. The red globs converged from all sides until the wall had reformed, completely solid and smooth.

"Wicked," Lily murmured, forgetting she made a point of never stroking their egos. James tried to meet her eyes, but she refused to look at him. And she certainly wasn't about to run at him again, if that's what he expected. She concentrated on Peter, who had returned to the edge of the bed. String from the bottoms of his trouser legs dangled around his feet, no doubt freed by the shuffling of a boy who was slightly too short.

"Just close the wall as you walk in," offered Remus.

"I don't want my foot stuck!"

Lily was reminded with a shudder of the rumours surrounding Gringotts high-security vaults. The boys were admittedly brilliant at magic, even if they found less than scholarly applications. She suspected if they sold their ideas and creations they could turn a hefty profit.

"Prongs," Sirius addressed James, his handsome face bored of Peter's banter, "Personally I have never seen you look more like a deer in facelights."

"Headlights," Lily muttered.

"Night of romance not going as planned, I see," Sirius continued with a mocking edge.

"Thanks to your tactless arse," James shot back, then glanced at Lily and added, "Not that…" He released a tremendous sigh, annoyed with jumping hoops, and threw himself across the bed. Sirius moved from his spread-eagle to cross his legs and fold his arms behind his head. James did the same, and the boys stared at the ceiling looking rather like brothers. After a while, James opened his mouth again.

"Evans was just in a tough spot," he said, tossing an air of nonchalance over the encounter with the use of her surname, "and I tried to help is all." He turned his head and caught Lily's eye.

She let the corners of her mouth twitch up in a half smile, prompting a reassuring wink from James. Her smile widened and her thoughts were tinged again with the urge to hug. She should just hand them out today - well, not to Sirius for being a git. And the thought of hugging Peter didn't really appeal, either.

"What kind of 'help?'" Peter sniggered, cementing her opinion.

"Oh, do you all have to be such pricks?" said Lily, rising to her feet with indignation. She ignored that no one but Peter had laughed and excused herself back to bathroom, vowing to soon be gone.

"Wasn't me that time," Sirius whispered as he nudged James with his elbow. James grabbed a pillow and swung it toward the foot of the bed. He didn't bother to watch, but listened with a serene expression as a muffled thump was followed by a squeal and a solid crack.

"D'you reckon he hit his head on the bedpost?" whispered Sirius again, who had neglected to watch the action as well.

"Bloody hell, it's not my fault your girlfriend is crazy!" yelped Peter.

"She's not my girlfriend," James retorted quite loudly as he sat up. His glance flickered to the bathroom door.

"And shove it, Wormtail, she's not deaf," added Sirius. "But he's got a point... Moony, talk to her?"

"Me?" Remus had lain down across the couch at Lily's departure and conjured up a book. His eyes remained focused on its minute print.

"You…she's…It might be _that time of the month_. Merlin knows none of _us_ can truly relate," said Sirius. "And she likes you best, anyway."

Without a word, James slid off the bed and marched to the bathroom.

Inside, Lily was sitting on the tiles. Their voices bounced easily around the marble and slammed into her ears. Crazy? She could go outside and punch Pettigrew, maybe fix up his rat nose. But that would probably alienate the boys forever. She might disapprove of their actions, despise their arrogance, and dodge Potter, but she couldn't deny they were a fun lot. With all her stress, maybe she was being a bit moody. Or, fine - crazy, but only from a callous, ignorant viewpoint. Regardless, maybe some fun was what she needed.

And besides, her project wasn't going to complete itself.

"Lily?"

She made up her mind, or rather surrendered herself to impulse. When she opened the door, James clutched a hand to either side of the doorframe.

"Lily," he began, but faltered as his insides were warmed by her soft smile. She grasped his arm lightly and tugged on it to free his grip. Her hand slipped down to his, and he let her guide it away from the doorframe as she slipped out between it and him. Strolling to the middle of the room, she felt his fingers gently hold on, leave the ghost of a squeeze, before he let go and their hands fell to their sides.

"On second thought, can I stay?" she said airily to no one in particular, concentrating on the big yellow fireflies flickering in the clear night, mingling with the stars.

Sirius whooped and clambered off the bed to sling an affectionate arm over her.

"The night awaits!" he cried and waved an arm panoramically across the windowpanes. He grinned at her, then snatched his arm from her shoulders to catch the broomstick tossed to him.

James handed Lily one as well, murmuring, "My favorite old broom." The sleek wood was warm where he had held it.

Remus had thrown the vast windows open; the room swelled with the hum of cicadas and the sweet air that clung to their skin. The five of them, including a very sullen Peter, lined up. James was first to glide outside, and courtesy let Lily take off behind him. Again, she didn't think, and let excitement shiver in her stomach. She glanced down once, at the pattern of light from James's room that cast long shadows across the grass. Her gaze rested on the vines snaking in the dirt, then drifted away and rose to the yellow sliver of moon.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you so much to anyone who visited, skimmed, read, reviewed, alerted, favorited, c2'd, anything, etc. I wrote this a little fast because I remembered I didn't want to let it recede too far before updating. Tell me what you think: please review! It'd only take a few seconds more than alerting or anything else. I like to hear all opinions.


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